


The Family You Choose

by astralis



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-07
Updated: 2009-03-07
Packaged: 2017-11-16 17:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralis/pseuds/astralis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Emily's life has become somehow domestic.  Written shortly after Henry was born, so well and truly Jossed by canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Family You Choose

 

It was well past Henry's bedtime when Emily got home. Expecting quiet, she opened the front door to the noise of whining, splashing, and a series of dull thuds. Judging by JJ's tone of voice, she'd had enough of whatever was going on. Evidently, Henry had come back late from Will and Sarah's, and was in the bath and hating it.

Emily dumped her keys on the table by the door and her ready bag on the floor. There was a part of her - a large part - that rebelled against coming home to a four year old tyrant. She was tired and upset and stressed out, she'd been away far too long on her first case with her own team, and she wanted a long hot bath that she didn't have to share with a wind-up crocodile; a big glass of wine; and JJ all to herself. But she loved Henry, in a way that constantly surprised her, JJ came as a package deal, and Emily had never quite had a family to come home to before. She kicked off her shoes and left them lying haphazardly on the floor, where they'd be in the way later, and padded along to the bathroom in her stockinged feet. "Hi," she said, cautiously, putting her head around the bathroom door just as JJ said, "Henry, fine. Just get out of the bath. It's after bedtime. Hi, Em."

"Hi," Emily said again, coming fully into the bathroom as Henry slithered, thin and pale and dripping wet, out of the bath and into the big red towel JJ was holding out for him. "Hey, Henry."

"Hi," Henry said, squirming around in the depths of the towel as JJ tried to dry his hair.

"How was your dad's?" Emily asked, crouching down on the floor at JJ's side.

Henry emerged from the towel, his hair tousled. "Good."

"What did you do?" The pressures of the job and the outside world began to slide away as Emily tried to distract him enough to let JJ finish drying him off. The bathroom smelt of apple shampoo and soap, and so did Henry.

"Went to the zoo. Read books."

"Cool. What books?"

" _Wild Things_."

Even JJ cracked a smile at that. "How many times?" she asked, briskly rubbing one leg with the towel as Henry, leaning on her shoulder, attempted to balance on the other foot. "Stand still. Both feet on the floor."

"Lots." _Where the Wild Things Are_ was Henry's favourite book. He had a copy at each house, and liked it when Emily called him Wild Thing.

JJ tossed the towel to the floor. "All done. Go put your pajamas on and I'll be along in a minute to read to you."

"I want Emily," Henry said, and was gone, his feet pounding on the polished wood floor of the hallway as he ran into his room. The bedroom door slammed shut.

JJ sighed.

"Will dropped him off late again, huh?" Emily asked.

"At least he called this time," JJ said, leaning over to let the bath water out. "Do you mind reading to him? I'll order us a pizza."

"It's fine," said Emily. She knew Henry had only asked for her because he wanted to push JJ away. He was always like this when he had to switch houses. It wasn't anything they did and it wasn't anything Will did. It was about being four, and having to move from place to place at the whim of a grown-up. Emily knew what that felt like. She had a lot of sympathy for him; it was probably why they got on so well.

"Tell him I'll be in to say goodnight." JJ stood up slowly, pushing off from the edge of the bath. Emily took her hand and helped pull her to her feet. Her skin was damp from Henry's splashing, and she looked tired. "Thanks, Em."

"It's okay," Emily said. She squeezed JJ's hand, and went down the hallway to Henry's room. He was sitting up in bed, cross-legged under his blankets, pajama top on backwards. "Got a book? Your mom will be along in a few minutes to say goodnight."

Henry brandished his battered copy of _Wild Things_. Unsurprised, Emily took it and sat down on the edge of his bed. He leaned against her, his little body so vibrantly alive, damp hair cold against her sleeve. "I miss daddy."

Emily tucked an arm around him. "I know you do, Henry. Your mom knows that, too."

"It's not fair."

"No, it's not." The book balanced precariously in one arm, Emily began to read as Henry turned the pages for her. He always knew when to turn. That was one of the things Emily loved about him.

As they neared the end of the book a shadow fell across the light coming from the hallway. Without missing a beat in her reading Emily looked up to see JJ leaning against the doorframe. Her hair gleamed golden, and she was smiling. Henry was half asleep and hadn't noticed her, so Emily gave her a quick smile and read on to the happy ending. Henry murmured the last line along with her and closed the book slowly, without lifting his head from Emily's arm. She could have stayed there forever, stayed in his safe, innocent world, but instead she took the book from him and put it away on the table by his bed. As she kissed the top of his head she lingered for a second in the reassuring scent of his shampoo, filing it away for the next time life got tough. "Night, buddy. I love you."

"Love you too," Henry murmured. Emily stood up as he snuggled down against his pillow, and moved back to give JJ space. Henry's skinny arms came out from under the blankets and entwined themselves around JJ's neck and they hugged for a long, long time in silence. Emily stood in the doorway to wait for JJ, and tried not to watch.

These were the moments that kept her sane.

JJ told Henry she loved him, and smoothed out the blankets around his shoulders, and put out the light. Emily led the way out of his room and JJ shut the door behind them. Not a single cry of protest came from the bundle of blankets and boy; Henry really was tired.

So was Emily. She yawned despite herself, pressing her hand to her mouth. God. She hadn't had a decent night's sleep since they'd left Quantico eight days earlier, between the case and the endless weight of her new responsibilities and the emptiness of not having JJ in the room next door, to be hugged and kissed in secret moments. Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss, Unit Chief. It still sounded wrong. It still sounded too much, too fast, like someone who wasn't her.

JJ took her hand and led her down towards the living room. Emily followed silently, her over-tired brain shutting down on her. Now that she was home, the world outside these four walls fading to white even as she breathed, all she wanted was just to remember who she was. That was the thing about JJ and Henry; they remembered when Emily wasn't too sure any more, and _that_ happened more often than she'd like.

To sit down, they had to clear the couch of three Transformers, five racing cars, a dinosaur, and a basket of clean laundry. Domesticity, in Emily's short experience, was rarely tidy or sensible and generally involved sticky finger marks on anything resembling a clean surface, but she knew she wouldn't have it any other way. She let herself drop onto the couch, her head settling comfortably on JJ's shoulder.

Mmmmmm. That was better.

"My parents want to know about Thanksgiving."

Maybe not so much.

Emily found JJ's family perplexing, to say the least. JJ was the youngest of four children, and the only girl. She had myriad nephews and nieces and aunts and uncles and cousins, half of whom resided in the small Pennsylvania town JJ had escaped at 18, and each of whom knew their own place in the family through a complex web of relationships and interactions. Emily had so far managed to avoid meeting more than three of JJ's relations at any one time, and had cherished a fond - if irrational - hope that she could keep it up. It had been three years, after all. "We might not even be here at Thanksgiving," she pointed out. They hadn't been, the last couple of years.

"I know, but they want us to come if we're home."

Emily bit her bottom lip and said nothing. If, by some miracle, they _were_ both home for Thanksgiving, the last thing she wanted to do would be to get on another plane - with Henry in tow, because they had him for Thanksgiving this year.

"I want a family Thanksgiving. I want _Henry_ to have a family Thanksgiving."

Apparently that meant a _Jareau_ family Thanksgiving, because he'd been with Will's family in New Orleans last year. " _We're_ a family," Emily pointed out, more because she was tired and avoiding the topic of family holidays than for any other reason.

JJ, who'd been leaning comfortably against Emily, sat up straight, and Emily knew she was pissed off. "Do you think I don't know that?"

"I didn't _say_ that." Emily sat up straight as well. She didn't actually want to argue with JJ - she never did - but it seemed she was going to.

" _Emily_ -"

"We barely get any time to ourselves as it is."

"That's not my fault."

"I never said it was," Emily protested, feeling unfairly put-upon, as if she was being blamed for the problems of the world.

"Two days, Emily. For God's sake, it's two days. Are you that bothered by my family?"

"That's got nothing to do with it, and you know it."

"Can't you just be glad they actually want us there?"

"Can't you see I just want one quiet weekend with you and Henry?"

JJ stood up, brushing her hair back from her face with both hands. "Do you know how _long_ it's been since I had a holiday with my family?"

"You chose this life," Emily pointed out, not knowing whether she meant herself or the FBI.

"That's not the point, Emily. Do you even _listen_ to what I say?"

"For God's sake, JJ - "

The doorbell rang then and they fell silent, looking at each other. Emily didn't know what she would have said, but it was probably a good thing they weren't going to find out.

"I'll get it," JJ said.

Emily watched her disappear into the hallway, heard her open the door, the low murmur of her voice and of the delivery man's. God. They could go from zero to a hundred in a second when they were tired and stressed out. She put her head in her hands, feeling absurdly close to tears. She'd grown up with the facade of domestic peace and harmony, with parents who hid their problems behind closed doors lest the world - or their daughter - should learn the truth. The picture-perfect idyll in her head never stood up to real life.

JJ reappeared with the pizza. "It's vegetarian," she said, pausing so briefly in the doorway that it was barely noticeable. Sometimes Emily cursed her profiling skills.

"That's okay."

They ate in the hard silence that Emily hated. There were plenty of nights where they'd sit in silence because they were so tired, so emotionally exhausted, that it was all they could do to hold it together for Henry and there were no words to spare for each other. That was fine by Emily; when she felt like that she didn't _want_ to talk.

The feeling that they _couldn't_ talk to each other, though - that's what made her feel sick. Like the way their fights could appear out of nowhere, an unexpected round of the silent treatment from both sides threw Emily into a panic, a conviction that they couldn't possibly come back from this, that it was The End. They came always came back better than ever, but Emily worried anyway.

After she'd finished eating JJ disappeared off to the bathroom. Emily stayed stock-still on the sofa and could hear the water running, clanking through old pipes. JJ's long baths were legendary; she wouldn't be out for an hour or so. She was probably giving them both time to cool off.

Emily stood up and cleared away the pizza box. She was too restless, too twitchy, almost, to sit still, so she retrieved the dumped basket of laundry. Almost half of its contents belonged to Henry - small boys apparently went through more clothes than even she did - but the rest was work clothes, both JJ and Emily's, and were going to need ironing. There was something soothing about the mere act of wrestling the ironing board from the hallway closet, finding the iron, rifling through the CD collection to find something to suit her mood. Emily had taught herself to iron, through trial and error, in college; it was something her mother had never done for her and had never, to the best of Emily's knowledge, done herself.

JJ had referred to Emily's "fetish for all things domestic" as "cute and bizarre", and had never even mentioned it to anyone else.

Emily was feeling a lot more rational by the time she'd finished. Henry's clothes were neatly folded and sorted into piles for him to put away in the morning (they wouldn't be in piles by the time they reached his drawers, but Emily lived in hope) and she'd separated her own clothes from JJ's and ironed the lot practically to within an inch of their lives.

_This_ was her family. This, here and now: a little boy curled up, fast asleep, beneath a blue-and-grey plaid comforter, the detritus of his life scattered across the _entire house_ , and JJ, quite possibly the most beautiful woman Emily had ever seen, who made her laugh and soothed her nightmares away and talked to her late into the night when they were in two different states chasing two different bad guys. JJ had parents she got on with, more brothers and sisters and cousins than Emily could count: that was the difference between them. Family meant one thing to Emily, another to JJ.

And Emily was an idiot who was going to have to suck it up and apologise. For JJ, right? She could do that.

She detoured on the way to the bathroom, delaying the apology. She took the ironed clothes down to their room and put them away in their respective drawers or closets. She put the ironing board and iron back where they belonged, then unpacked and repacked her ready bag.

If she didn't hurry up, JJ would be out of the bath and into bed. Emily hating going to bed with JJ when they were fighting; she didn't know what to do, how to lie so that they wouldn't be touching. Once, before Emily got her own team and they'd come back from a horrible case in New Mexico, and with Henry staying at Will's, they'd ended up shouting at each other about chocolate icecream (Emily had finished it, JJ wanted it) and a load of wet laundry that had been left in the machine for a week (JJ had been supposed to deal with it) and Emily had slept on the couch, which for some reason that she'd only recently wrapped her head around pissed JJ off even more.

So Emily steeled herself, remembered she was an FBI agent, knocked on the bathroom door and went in without waiting for a reply. JJ had run herself a bubble bath, but the bubbles were fading away. She had her hair clipped back and her eyes closed. She looked peaceful, and Emily stood in the doorway, waiting.

"Hi," JJ said, and opened her eyes.

"Hey baby." Emily didn't move, uncertainty making her indecisive. But she had to say something, now that she was here, and she might as well get it over with so she said "I'm sorry."

JJ nodded. "Yeah. Me too."

Okay. It was as easy as that, sometimes. Feeling lighter, Emily crossed the bathroom floor, noticing the wet remnants of Henry's bath on the tiles, and the pile of his clothes in the corner. Dodging the puddles, she knelt down beside JJ, propping one elbow on the rim on the bath. "I missed you."

"Me too." JJ's hand came out of the soapy water, and grasped Emily's. "You were away for a long time."

"I know. It was a tough one."

"I heard you did well," JJ said.

Emily squeezed her hand, letting her thumb brush easily over JJ's skin. "I feel so responsible."

"For the victims?"

"For my team."

JJ nodded. "I know." She sat up, and put her other arm around Emily's neck, bringing their heads together. Emily accepted the contact and the warmth, feeling water soaking through her shirt. She pressed her forehead against JJ's, feeling JJ's breath in her face, and had to swallow hard. This intimacy could still knock her off her feet.

"I can't let anything happen to them," Emily said. It was harder than she'd expected to form the words.

"You won't. If anything happens to them, it won't be your fault. It won't ever have been because of anything you did."

"You don't know that." Emily squeezed her eyes tight shut and held on to JJ for dear life.

"I know you."

Emily said, "I love you." It seemed right.

"I know." JJ's lips were on Emily's cheek, and then her nose, and then her mouth, and then she said, softly, "I love you too."

Emily held on a few minutes longer, legs cramping and back aching. "Pennsylvania at Thanksgiving?"

"If you're okay with that."

"Yeah," Emily said, lying just a bit. She could deal with it for JJ's sake, because JJ put up with her and God knew that was practically a full time job in and of itself.

"Thank you."

"You owe me one." Emily stood up and stretched, trying to rid herself of the cramp. No such luck. "I'm going to go get changed."

As she reached the door, JJ's voice called her back. "Welcome home, Emily."


End file.
